Brain scans could identify potential for teen drug addictions

Research produced by Stanford University and published in Nature Communications has indicated that brain scans demonstrating the way teenagers' brains are wired could help predict whether they will develop drug problems in the future.

The study involved examining 144 adolescents who were generally more impulsive than their peers - a trait often associated with the misuse of drugs.

The adolescents, who had not previously used recreational drugs, were asked to fill in questionnaires and take part in behavioural tests to assess how attracted they were to trying new things.

Findings from the research suggested that teenagers who had a specific pattern of activity on brain scans were more likely to misuse drugs. Brain scans were then conducted on the teenagers, while they were asked to carry out tasks that could win them cash prizes at the same time.

Brian Knutson, a professor of psychology at Stanford, commented: “This is just a first step toward something more useful. Ultimately the goal – and maybe this is pie in the sky – is to do clinical diagnosis on individual patients, in the hope that doctors could stop drug abuse before it starts.”

Meanwhile Prof Derek Hill, of University College London, added: "It is therefore important that results like this are replicated in separate studies before the results in this paper should be used to change the way these young people are diagnosed and treated."